Wayne Crews: Americans Being Crushed by Obama Regulations

Americans have good cause to feel over-regulated — over 3,000 new rules and regulations were issued by government agencies under the Obama administration in 2014, says Wayne Crews, vice president for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Crews told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV that at the end of 2014, the federal register added 3,541 new rules and regulations Americans are now subject to.

"Now, we have what you might call a regulation without representation," Crews said.

"Congress is supposed to make the laws and last year Congress passed 129 laws. Meanwhile, the regulators — OSHA, FDA, the FCC — [are] getting in on the act … those agencies together put out 3,541 regulations.

"That's a multiple 27 regulations for every law. What you have now is bureaucrats doing the bulk of the lawmaking in the country."

Crews believes the president is partly to blame following his so-called "pen and phone" declaration in which he vowed to sign laws into effect without the approval of Congress.

"You get what we call regulatory dark matter, where there's an agency bulletin, a guided document and a blogpost that puts in a waiver for Obamacare. Lawmaking is happening by these decrees off the books," he said.

Crews — whose Washington, D.C.-based non-profit libertarian think tank fights what it believes is excessive government regulation — urged the new Republican-led Congress to clamp down on the practice.

As well, Crews said, some 659 rules of the new rules are expected to affect small businesses.

"Small businesses, they're the engine of job creations and new businesses. Most jobs are created out of businesses that are under 5-years-old," he explained.

"We don't have to regulate the future the way we regulated in the past … To recover this economy, you don't have to tell the grass to grow, you just have to take the rocks off of it."

Americans have good cause to feel over-regulated — over 3,000 new rules and regulations were issued by government agencies under the Obama administration in 2014, says Wayne Crews, vice president for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.